Thankful
by Chey119
Summary: Jean supposed he should be thankful. He was still alive, after all. And Armin, although still bound and unconscious (a nasty little side effect from being hit on the right temple after a certain blonde wig slipped), was still very much alive, too. Post-chapter 53; canon divergence


A/N: A little canon divergence from the events of chapter 53 (so if you haven't read that yet, more than likely none of this will make sense) in which Jean and Armin's Eren and Historia disguises are compromised.

Hope you enjoy :D Also, Jean curses a lot hehe.

* * *

Jean supposed he should be thankful. He was still alive, after all. And Armin, although still bound and unconscious (a nasty little side effect from being hit on the right temple after a certain blonde wig slipped), was still very much alive, too.

He supposed he should be thankful for a lot of things, really. The fact that his captor was out of shape was a definite plus— the blows to his face didn't have quite the impact behind them as they could have, although they still hurt like a bitch. And the man had a nasty little habit of talking too much—something about walls and titans and _blah blah blah_; Jean's brain was too exhausted and his body too tired to decipher all the feverish nonsense —which gave Jean a brief respite between the brutal punches thrown to his jaw.

The guy was clearly intoxicated; breath foul and pungent, a factor that at first Jean thanked his lucky stars for, because the drunk ones were simple-minded and easy to take advantage of—but after an ill-intended punch aimed for the right side of Jean's jaw went askew and connected with his neck and sent him into a fit of coughs and a frenzied attempt to catch his breath, he suddenly wished that the man was sober.

Because that shit hurt.

Like hell.

"Guhh!" Jean grunted, when a particularly hard strike split open the left side of his cheek. The pain burned and ebbed out through the rest of his body, his limbs tired and his mind drained, and suddenly he was ironically grateful that he was tied and bound to a chair, because otherwise he was sure he would be curled up into himself on the dirty warehouse floor.

Unintentionally, Jean glimpsed over at Armin and he was suddenly thankful Armin was unconscious so he wouldn't have to view the pitiful state he was in. More than that, he was thankful Armin wasn't conscious and being put through this torture himself. Jean was afraid that if it was the smaller boy in his situation, as strong minded and willed as Armin was, he wouldn't last very long.

The man grabbed a fistful of Jean's hair, curling it between his massive fingers and yanking hard so Jean looked him directly in the eyes. "Still not talking, eh?"

_This fucker here—_

The man released him and stepped back and Jean, despite his swimming vision, briefly had the clarity of mind to notice his captor wrap his knuckles with bandages, using the gauze to hold something in place.

Something particularly metal like.

_Shit._

"We've had enough of your shitty ass dress-up games."

Jean remained silent, his downcast gaze briefly registered the dark brown wig left abandoned on the ground by his feet_._ He had to agree with his kidnapper on this one; he was fucking _done_ with playing the Eren decoy, too. He had already cursed his situation, multiple times, and wondered how the fuck he got himself in this mess in the first place. _He didn't want to do this. _The memory of Armin's desperate face rang clear in his mind; Armin's small body groped and fondled as he attempted to maintain the Historia disguise and tried —_tried_— to keep his voice quiet while Jean watched and _knew_ that all Armin wanted to do was scream. Jean was so overwhelmed that all he could do was sulk further back into his prison of a chair and turn his head away in a pitiful attempt to try and detach himself from the situation. _He didn't want to have to be witness to something like that._

"For the last time—"

_Fuck you, man._

"Where's Eren Jaeger?"

Jean leveled his eyes with his captor as his rage began to reach its tipping point. No way was he being put through all this _shit_ just to hand over the whereabouts of humanity's last hope, _Eren fucking Jaeger_. _Fuck that._

"Bite me."

It wasn't the hard punch that threw Jean off guard and had him violently thrown to the left side of his chair—blood dripped from the corners of his mouth and his vision meshed into a dark blur of blues and greys and greens _and holy shit were those fucking stars?_—it was the metal plate wrapped around his abductor's knuckles, innocently disguised with thin wrappings of gauze that had connected just on the high point of his cheekbone, effectively lodging his breath in his throat. _Motherfucker._

_Where the fuck is everyone? _Jean spat out the blood that filled his mouth and blinked away his blurry vision, to no avail.

_Corporal Levi. Mikasa. Sasha and Connie. Where the fuck are you guys?_

If they didn't hurry up, he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold out. He wasn't dumb. He knew the effects of blood loss and blunt force trauma (a pretty little detail he suddenly recalled from his medical training during his academy days) and as stubborn as he was, he knew he couldn't survive many more hits to the face.

"Once I'm done with you, I'm gonna move on to your little pal over there. We'll see how long he lasts."

Jean ground his teeth down hard as his vision darkened. Flashes from their earlier situation came to mind.

The man groped Armin's chest, whispered how he wanted to hear how cute and feminine his voice sounded. The hand slowly ran up Armin's neck to his hair and he told him how pretty he was, and leaned his face into the crook of Armin's neck—it was then that Jean had abruptly turned away and cursed every damn deity that he could name, wished he wasn't here, Armin wasn't here, and they could just be done with this shitty ass plan altogether— until there was a yell that caused Jean to snap his head back around only to see the man with Armin's blonde wig dangling from his fingertips in confusion. Jean and Armin made eye contact, their eyes wide, and after the split second it took to realize that they were compromised, their kidnapper had violently struck Armin hard on the temple, knocking him out. It took only seconds for the guy to stomp over to Jean and sharply grab his jaw and jerk the dingy brown wig off his head.

His face had taken a pretty good beating since then.

Jean's foggy head took in Armin's slumped form, and from this angle he could just barely make out the dark purple bruise on his temple and the blood that matted his hair. If he didn't hold out, they would move on to Armin, and Armin definitely wouldn't survive.

"I guess I'll just have to stay alive, then, eh?" Jean said, although he couldn't be entirely sure he said anything from how raw his throat felt _and_ _when had he slumped this far down in the chair?_

The man's mouth moved, but a dull ringing had consumed Jean's hearing and rendered everything a dull buzz that rattled the back of his skull. He was sure whatever his fuckface of a captor was saying would have pissed him off anyway. Everything the man said pissed him off.

But his thoughts were cut off as another sharp strike of metal covered knuckles hit the left of his face and he coughed and sputtered and _oh shit, I think this is it_—

His body was sagging and the only thing he could feel anymore was the tightness of the ropes around his wrists cut through his skin.

He could briefly register a crash in the distance that sounded like glass and he was sure he was just going fucking crazy at this point because his vision started to fade to black and he was sure he was about to throw up.

Jean noticed from his slouch in the chair that his kidnapper wasn't in front of him anymore, and he began to wonder where he was when he heard a decidedly un-manly scream from one of the far corners of the warehouse. _Oh_—

_About fucking time._

Suddenly, Jean was free from his ties in the chair and he was lifted off his feet and was moving. He caught the familiar smell of gas from maneuver gear, and through his tunnel vision could make out the faintest color of red fabric and raven hair. As his muggy brain tried to piece together what happened, and where exactly he was (_oh, look rooftops)_, all he could really think to say was, "'ey, Mikasa."

"Jean," she said, half her face covered behind the neutral mask of her scarf, but her eyes betrayed her concern. "Are you alright?" Her maneuver gear wire caught a building and sent them hurtling through the empty streets of Trost.

"Sure," was all he could manage to say, as the cool breeze of the air caressed his face, and he momentarily wondered what he must have looked like—beaten and bloody, and literally swept off his feet by one of humanity's strongest and—

_Fuck, I'm a damsel in distress._

Jean blinked and tried to make out the hazy shape of the clouds above, which he suddenly realized was useless because there were no fucking clouds in the sky. His stomach suddenly dropped, "Where's Armin?" he said, trying to shift in Mikasa's strong grip to see exactly where they were but it was still no use because blood was in his fucking eyes.

"With Connie, up ahead," was all she said, and even though Jean's vision was rather shitty at the moment, he could feel her anger through her hands that held his legs and waist— she had probably noticed Armin's rather nasty injury and he knew she'd be out for blood. "We're heading to the rendezvous."

It only took mere minutes and suddenly Mikasa and Jean came in through an open window of their rendezvous point, a rinky-dink little building right on the outskirts of Trost district. Mikasa was effectively placing Jean down in a chair and before he could think to ask what the next step of the plan was, she adjusted her maneuver gear and was out the window again—presumably back to the warehouse.

"Oh my god, Jean?!"

"What the fuck happened to you?"

Jean registered two voices and, shocked, stood up as fast as he could and that was a big fucking mistake because holy shit he was dizzy.

He blinked, making out the faces in front of him. "Historia. Eren." He sighed and tried for a smile, but was positive it turned more into a pained grimace. "Just a little interrogation, heh." His words were nonchalant but he was about to double over. He wondered how disgusted Historia would be if he threw up right now. He hoped it wouldn't come to that point.

"I-I need to lie down," Jean said as he made out the shape of a bed through his bloody vision.

"You look like shit," Eren said, and _thank you very fucking much for the brilliant observation._

"I'll get some ointment to fix up some of your wounds," Historia quickly said, and she was out of the room and back with a supply kit so fast that Jean wasn't even sure she moved. Her hand grasped his briefly to guide him to sit down on the bed, but he stopped abruptly.

"How's Armin?"

"He's fine," Historia smiled. "Connie got him here before you. Hanji's looking after him right now. We should really try to close up these wounds, and then take you down to see her as well."

"Yeah, you're bleeding all over the place," Eren added, gesturing to the floor and then to the bloodstained fabric of his shirt.

"Last fucking time," Jean said suddenly.

Silence.

Historia and Eren looked at each other, confused, and back to Jean. "What?"

Jean's numb fingers pointed to Eren in a last ditch effort to make a point before he collapsed. "Last fucking time I dress up as your shitty ass self," he huffed, but it came out as more of a slur of jumbled up sounds.

Eren shot him an annoyed look, "Shut up, horse face. You did well. Don't ruin it."

And Jean still had some semblance of mind to want to point out that if he looked so much like a goddamn horse, why the fuck was he always chosen as Eren's decoy. But instead he settled for an exasperated "fuck you" as he tried to stand up straight, aggressively avoiding any and all help as he made his way to the bed. _I'll be fucking fine._

He thought he had said it out loud, but suddenly his vision narrowed and started to spin and this was not going to end well.

_Oh shit_.

"Jean?"

"Oi, Jean?"

He hit the floor hard, and he could hear the sound of footsteps buzz in his ears and the feel of small delicate hands lift his head into their lap (_Historia, you're a goddess)._ Rushed stomps of boots and a light chime of "goddamn damsel in distress" echoed throughout the room, and Jean was sure he knew exactly which irritating little shit said that, and when he woke up he swore he'd beat the living hell out of them.

But for now, as Jean's aching body relaxed and his world dissolved into an expanse of black, he was just thankful he was alive.


End file.
